Winter Meetings interview: Mets Charity Auction

JAY HORWITZ: Good morning, everybody. For anybody here who is in the back room either wants to make their way over here or to those in front here, we welcome you.

It’s certainly a day that none of us hoped we would have to have an event like this, but for the baseball family, for the PR family, for the Mets family, it’s a very special day for us to be making an announcement today about Shannon Forde Field.

Many of you aware from the last five years, all of the teams have gotten together and put together an auction that’s raised close to $700,000 already, and we’re excited about what we’re going to be able to do this year.

Before I go ahead and introduce our first speaker, I’d like to ask the entire Mets family to come up here to the stage. With that, I would like to introduce the chief operating officer of the New York Mets, Jeff Wilpon, to say a few words.

JEFF WILPON: Well, thank you. I think a picture says a thousand words. So this is what Shannon meant to all of us. Again, to have this kind of recognition for her and her hometown, for her family, for Jay, for everybody else. We’re tremendously proud to be the recipients of this and accept this. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I thank Pat and everybody else who was behind this to make this field happen.

Again, all I can say is this is the group that loves and misses Shannon every single day. Not much more you can say. It’s bittersweet to be talking about this kind of tribute to such a young mother and friend and person that we lost way too soon. Jay?

JAY HORWITZ: Thank you, Jeff. On behalf of Shannon’s family, her mom and dad, Mike and Debbie, her husband, John, we just want to thank Major League Baseball for bestowing such a great honor to Shannon.

The Shannon …

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